Anthony Morgan, District Four male (18)
Allure lay gasping on the ground as I looked back and forth between her and Nailah.
"It actually wasn't me," she said, backing away a little.
"Oh, well that's a relief," I half-yelled sarcastically.
"I know, but it actually wasn't," Nailah said. "She touched a poison dart frog." Allure wheezed near her feet.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"I watched her do it," Nailah said.
"And you didn't stop her?" I asked. We both looked down as Allure flopped and let out a disturbing crackly breath. We both knew she was dead before the cannon sounded a second later.
"And you didn't stop her?" I asked again.
"No." Nailah looked guilty but resolute. "So she'd die."
"Now what are we gonna do? Are we supposed to fight it out right here?" I asked. We clearly weren't a pack anymore and I hardly trusted someone who let my ally die.
"No, that's just the thing." Nailah cautiously put down her hands and started explaining. "Three is a terrible number for a pack. We all know that eventually two will gang up on the one and then fight each other. But this time we can't do that. Dionysus is there so it's not smart to strike out on our own. So our minimum number is two and the third person is extra. Eventually two of us were gonna pick off the other so I saved us a fight and eliminated Allure without either of us getting injured. And now we're stuck together even if neither of us really want to. It's in both of our best interests to keep each other alive until Dionysus is dead.
"Were you a chess player or something before this?" I asked. Everything Nailah had just said was right, but I just wished it was me and Allure instead of me and her. Allure wasn't stupid or anything but I was getting a little freaked out by Nailah.
"Wouldn't it be poker?" Nailah said, smiling a little. "But actually I get really nervous when I play games like that. That's probably why I went into poisons- so I could do things without being right in front of the other person."
"That doesn't make me feel safer at all," I said.
"I'm not very safe either, since it's now super obvious not to trust me," Nailah pointed out.
"Yeah but if you know I don't trust you then you won't trust me either," I said.
"It's really more of a begrudging necessity than an alliance at this point," Nailah admitted.
But it got even more complicated. "But if we kill Dionysus then we'll be each others' biggest competition and immediately turn on each other. So honestly it's in our best interest not to kill him."
"Shoot, I didn't think that far ahead," Nailah said, looking nervous again.
"You killed someone without thinking far ahead?" I asked.
Nailah folded her arms defensively. "We all do! We're Careers!" she said.
"This whole thing really isn't smart," I admitted to both myself and Nailah.
"But unfortunately it's our best bet," Nailah said. She looked down again at Allure, one of whose eyes was slightly open. She grabbed two banana leaves and knelt by Allure, closing her eye and then covering her with the banana leaves. "I dunno, I just felt rude leaving her out," she said, a little embarrassed. "She cared so much about how she looked, you know."
"It's weird that that makes sense," I said. It made sense for a Career to kill someone but respect their corpse. "Let's get out of here and ride this crazy wave as long as it lasts."
Oberon Murdoch, District Nine male (17)
When I watched the Games I thought it would be terrifying and painful. I just hadn't imagined what kind of pain it would be. The Games were soul-crushing. I'd been hungry before but usually at the orphanage we at least ate three times a day. Here we were living off nothing but the fish we could manage to catch in a day. It took so much effort to hunt them and catch them and it felt like such a small amount of calories when we finally ate the dry, rancid-tasting corpses. Some days we didn't catch any at all and we scrounged around looking for familiar-looking plants. If we didn't find any we just went hungry. We just went a day without food- and that was after we'd been living on starvation rations for a week.
There was hardly anything to do but sleep but that might have been the worst part. Every night we would stretch out on the rocks and try to sleep. I'd never had trouble sleeping before. I'd slept lightly, since I had to be vigilant for Regan, but I'd never just been unable to sleep. I hadn't laid out staring at the night sky just not able to sleep. I hadn't known that was possible. To lie awake no matter how tired I was. To close my eyes and breathe deeply and just lie there. For hours and hours. Just feeling myself getting more and more tired but completely unable to sleep. I hadn't known it was so hard. I thought you just closed your eyes and went to sleep. I didn't know what to do when I just could not.
They torture people like this, don't they? They didn't need some exotic nightmarish process to tear a person apart. Just don't let him sleep. It had been less than two weeks but I felt eighty years old. Everything ached from sleeping on rock. I felt sluggish and irritable from not eating. Things just took so much longer to recover from,
from the exertion of catching a fish to a little scrape I got sliding down the rocks. I would have been really nervous about meeting anyone else if I didn't know everyone else felt just like me.
I'm not gonna say it. I'm not gonna tempt fate.
The single gray cloud in the sky was slowly swelling. I didn't even have to say it to know it would happen. The rain came slowly at first but grew into a chilly deluge. Water pelted into my clothes and my hair and somehow it just felt so loud.
RJ was looking longingly at the gazebo. "Maybe there aren't any Careers out here," he said halfheartedly.
"There probably aren't," I said, but neither of us made a move. Probably the last three Careers weren't nearby and we'd be perfectly safe taking shelter in the gazebo. But we weren't going to take the risk. I hadn't said it because I didn't want to tempt fate, but it was also true. Things could get worse.
Porsche Romeo, District Six female (17)
"So, how much longer do you think we'll last?" I asked idly as I peeled a banana.
Martin looked both sickened and terrified. "What a morbid thing to ask," he said.
"I dunno, I thought I'd be dead already by now," I said. "Every hour is a gift."
"I thought I was gonna fight everyone and win," Martin said. "I think maybe I'll only fight a few people. And hopefully win."
"I'll fight anyone," I said. "I won't win but I'll fight."
"Hope you leave a mark if they're a Career," Martin said.
I patted my bad leg. "Hah, you should see the other guy," I bragged.
"Wow, did you kill him?" Martin asked, leaning forward. He seemed at once impressed but also embarrassed that a crippled person had more casualties than he did.
"Actually he shot me in the leg and ran off. I was just pulling your leg," I said.
"Ha ha, pulling your leg," Martin said.
"Oh my gosh I can't believe you'd joke about that," I said, but my tone made it clear I was joking.
"Yeah, it was kind of lame," Martin said.
"I got a way better one. You know what they call a cow with a crippled leg?" I asked.
"What?" Martin asked.
"Lean beef."
Martin looked up and was about to laugh when panic shot over his face and he fell backwards. I heard him scrambling behind me as I turned and saw a jaguar crouched in the greenery seven feet away from me. Its golden eyes were impossibly pretty, I noticed even as it edged forward to jump. I glanced back at Martin and saw him cowering behind a tree, clearly still within the jaguar's view.
What do I do? I can't run. I can't hide. Definitely can't depend on Martin. Only one thing left.
I ROLL TO INTIMIDATE!
"BLAAAAARYARRGH!" I screamed as I jumped to my feet. "Rarrararr! You want some? You wanna GO?!"
The jaguar's head snapped up to focus on me with an expression that somehow clearly indicated WTF?!
"Come get some, then!" I screamed, hopping back and forth and waving my arms to look bigger. "Come at me, you overgrown pussy! You wanna GO?! You wanna take this OUTSIDE?!
The jaguar tensed to move but didn't seem to know which way it wanted to move. I chucked my water bottle at it and it squished lower to the ground to avoid it. I took the chance to grab two nearby palm frond and rustle them around so I looked even bigger.
"That's right! I'm big! I'm bad! I'll mess you up! I will beat your fur off your body and wear it as a skirt!" I yelled. The jaguar's lips pulled back and I saw a whole lot of teeth as it snarled. This is it. Time to see if I'm a genius or cat food.
I ran at the jaguar with my floppy scarecrow run. It batted warningly before turning around like quicksilver and darting into the jungle. Wow, it actually worked, I thought, having fully anticipated I was about to fistfight a jaguar.
"What was that?!" Martin asked as he came up behind you. "It could have shredded you!"
"And what was your big plan? Hide behind a tree it watched you run behind? I asked.
"I panicked," Martin said, holding his hands up in surrender.
"Me too, honestly," I said. "We just have very different panic responses."
"I guess it worked," Martin said.
"That's right," I said, looking out after the jaguar and pounding my chest since I'd never have a better chance to do it. "If you win you better tell everyone it was because your ally fought a jaguar."
"I definitely will," Martin said. "We should probably move on, though, in case any of the Careers heard that. Especially because if any of them did you just called them a pussy."
